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Fantasy Genre

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Fantasy genre is a broad genre that occupies many kinds of stories. It has many sub-genres and each has its own features. Ryder (2015) proposes seven sub-genres of fantasy which are commonly found in novels: comic fantasy, contemporary fantasy, dark fantasy, epic or high fantasy, fantasy of manners, historical fantasy, and sword and sorcery.
Comic fantasy combines both fantastic elements and comedy. Its main purpose is to entertain the reader. Although it is written in a humorous tone, the issue arisen in comic fantasy usually related to social satire or subversion (Nicolas, 2015; Ryder, 2015. It is often characterized by the existence of ridiculous characters, peculiar setting, and bizarre magical rules and creatures.
The next sub-genre …show more content…

This sub-genre is the combination of fantasy genre and historical fiction. The story is written based on historical event of real world (Nicolas, 2015). The setting plays an important role in historical fantasy since it should follow the historical accuracy. Typical elements found in this sub-genre are historical events, time travel, mythological influenced, etc. Incognito by Windy Puspitadewi is an example of historical fantasy.
The last sub-genre offered by Ryder is sword and sorcery. It is a genre that plays a lot with battle, sword, and vicious conflicts (Nicolas, 2015). The sub-genre focuses on action compares to the setting. The story of sword and sorcery commonly revolves around the hero who fights against the barbarian. In addition, Tuttle (2005) claims that this sub-genre can also be called as heroic fantasy since the story tells about a journey of the hero to complete a mission, usually to save a person or a thing. Nevertheless, in writing a fantasy story, the author does not always stick in one particular sub-genre. The author can also combine different sub-genres into one work. Thus, it can result in a new creation that is unique and remarkable. Moreover, a new sub-genre can also be …show more content…

Values of Fantasy
Even though each sub-genre of fantasy has their own characteristics, they still carry the same main values. In an essay entitled On Fairy Stories, Tolkien (1966, as cited in Sammons, 2010) believes that out of many values of fantasy, in which he calls as fairy stories, the most important value is it has capability to reveal particular universal truths that are infrequently seen in everyday life. According to him, there are three main functions of fairy stories; those are recovery, escape, and consolation.
Tolkien (1966, as cited in Sammons, 2010) describes recovery as “regaining a clear view of things”. It means that, by reading fantasy stories, the readers may find a new perspective in seeing things in real life. The act of recovery is important since it allows the reader to see most fundamental things in our primarily world afresh (Sammons, 2010). In primary world, our familiarity towards things makes us less appreciates and “loses a sense of total participation in the natural world” and fantasy stories let their readers to see the world in a new and refreshing manner (Pu, 2012). By adding fantastic elements in the story, the readers are given a chance to refresh their appreciation towards many things. For example, our vision towards basic things, such as stone, trees, and woods, are renewed because they are put in a new refreshing context. Fantasy stories help the readers to see things without possessiveness rather it gives them experience to see

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